Greta Gerwig makes Frances Ha funny and unexpectedly affecting, while Noah Baumbach keeps its awkwardness sharp enough to matter. It is sometimes too willing to forgive its heroine, but the friendship at its centre earns our affection.
Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha is a funny, tender comedy about the difficulty of becoming independent when nobody has agreed what that should look like. We recommend it, with a small reservation about how readily it forgives its heroine. Frances Halladay, played by Greta Gerwig, is a New York dancer whose enthusiasm runs ahead of her prospects. At 27, she still expects friendship and ambition to provide some direction. The film is patient with that expectation, even when Frances makes patience difficult.
Baumbach and Gerwig’s script puts Frances’s friendship with Sophie, played by Mickey Sumner, at the centre of her uncertainty. The importance Frances gives it can be touching and exhausting within the same exchange. Sumner provides enough resistance to keep Sophie from becoming merely someone who lets Frances talk. Gerwig makes neediness funny without making it harmless: being close to this woman would sometimes require more reassurance than anyone had available. That is a sound basis for a comedy about friendship.
Gerwig is especially good at letting physical confidence and social uncertainty interfere with each other. Frances’s pratfalls and mishaps are funny because the enthusiasm survives the embarrassment, though we can see what the embarrassment costs. We laughed, then found ourselves worrying about her. Gerwig’s timing does that: she gives the awkwardness long enough to become uncomfortable without turning Frances into an object of disgust. Baumbach occasionally lets the humiliation run on, but his affection for her remains clear.
Sam Levy’s black-and-white cinematography gives the drifting New York life a coherence that Frances herself lacks. The images are clear and inviting, and the pleasure of looking never quite cancels the discomfort of watching her struggle. Sam Lisenco’s production design keeps the question of money visible in the places Frances occupies. That gives her uncertainty a practical cost, though we wish the writing pressed harder on the differences in wealth. The film notices class, then often lets Gerwig charm us past it.
Jennifer Lame’s editing gives the film its briskness without making Frances’s uncertainty feel tidily organised. At 86 minutes, it has room for awkward pauses but little appetite for explaining every change of mood. Delerue’s music supplies a sweep of feeling that suits Frances’s hopeful view of herself. The French New Wave references are affectionate and sometimes a little flattering to everyone involved. Still, the movement and music make her enthusiasm easy to share, which matters when her behaviour is less appealing.
Within the coming-of-age comedy, its useful choice is to take friendship as seriously as personal ambition. Frances does not need to become unpleasant for her dependence on Sophie to cause trouble, and the film understands that fondness can survive irritation. Its optimism is welcome, particularly because the jokes can hurt. The problem comes when that optimism seems to excuse behaviour the script has already shown us clearly. We wanted a little more room for the people who have to live with Frances’s mistakes.
That reservation need not keep anyone away who enjoys a comedy built around an awkward, talkative person. Gerwig makes Frances worth spending time with, and Sumner gives their friendship weight beyond the jokes. Watch it with a friend who has known you long enough to remember your less convincing plans.
